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Mumbai: Bombay HC has dismissed a student’s petition alleging discrimination in NEET-PG provisions for state quota seats and held they are not arbitrary, unreasonable or discriminatory as claimed. “Every perceived hardship and inconvenience arising out of legislation or policy would not result in [it] being regarded as unconstitutional,” said a bench of Justices B P Colabawalla and Somasekhar Sundaresan. “The underlying policy is reasonable, rational, justifiable and defensible.”
HC called the petition “a form of ‘chance litigation’ to gamble… a prospect of widening the scope for admission when competing with other candidates”. “We say nothing beyond noticing the deep sense of entitlement at every stage of choice being made in the course of the journey with education at premium institutions,” it said, but refrained from imposing costs as the petitioner is a student.
The student, Anna Mathew, is domiciled in Maharashtra but pursued her MBBS in Tamil Nadu. HC noted that by “making that choice, the petitioner consciously chose not to be regarded as a state quota candidate for her future postgraduate aspirations in Maharashtra”.
Mathew, who has secured a PG seat in a Mumbai college, wanted to compete under the state quota, which she was not entitled to under the NEET rules, said govt lawyer Jyoti Chavan. Through her counsel, V M Thorat, Mathew challenged two provisions of NEET-PG 2024 rules—paras 8.2 and 8.3—laid down for state quota, alleging discrimination among domiciles. Para 8.2 states that MBBS graduates from a college in Maharashtra would be eligible for state quota seats for PG courses. Para 8.3 says that to qualify for the state quota, a state-domiciled PG candidate who graduated from outside Maharashtra ought to have had his/her MBBS admission under the all-India quota there.
Both provisions are rational and reasonable, held HC in a Nov 27 judgment, which was made available on Tuesday. Para 8.3 “objectively emphasises the need for high merit to break into the state quota” so as not to undermine students who stayed in Maharashtra, it said. The provision’s “empirically measurable criterion” makes the rule “reasonable,” it held.
Holding that the rules are “all policy choices that the executive and legislative arm must be permitted to make with a reasonable play”, it said, “When a choice is made, the judiciary may examine if the policy is manifestly arbitrary or perverse and determine the constitutional validity. Perceived lack of wisdom in a policy choice or hardship being occasioned… would not automatically make a provision unconstitutional.”
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